Lee Ving had it right.

It has been a lean holiday season over here at the deadxstop headquarters. Shopping was almost non-exsistent due to keeping the lights on and paying for my new book to be released. But don’t worry, this won’t be one of those posts where I complain about not having money because we all know this is the life I have chosen. For the right to say that I am following my dreams without compromise, there are the months I have to live with the insecurity of where my next rent payment is coming from.

I was talking with a friend a while ago about needing a new alternator for her car. She was complaining that she didn’t have the hundreds of dollars it would cost to get replaced. I told her that she could do it mad cheap if she went to a junk yard, took it out of an old car and installed it herself. I told her of the numerous times I had done just that years ago. She asked how I knew these things and I went on a rant of how not coming from a line of privilege forces you to be creative. See, I was forced to learn a few things about cars along the way, not because I was mechanically inclined or because I had some interest in mechanics - but because I was broke. If I didn’t learn how to scrounge and install these parts, well then my car wouldn’t run. And if my car wouldn’t run, I couldn’t work to make money. And if I didn’t make money, I didn’t eat - and I like to eat. Often.

I guess my point is that there are other ways to accomplish tasks outside of the obvious. We are consumed by a culture that places upon us distinct class levels based upon how much money we have. We are taxed differently because of this. We are made to feel inferior when we don’t have the newest or most “hip” thing currently available. We are all affected. But in this race to fit in and keep up, so many of us look past the genuine and go to what is easiest, which is usually something we can buy. I mean, I’m no different. Given the choice, if my niece offered me a necklace she made or a 50” plasma tv, well, let’s just say Call of Duty doesn’t look better in the reflection of a necklace assembled by the paws of an ankle biter. And I would like to think that I am one the “less” superficial Americans.

But this Christmas, I couldn’t afford much. I wanted to buy the things for the people that matter the most to me but I simply couldn’t. And like the car that wouldn’t start, I was forced to put my creativity and ingenuity to work. So for one person I spent 5 sweaty hours on my hands and knees scrubbing their apartment from floor to ceiling. Then I spent hours with flour, eggs and brown sugar actually baking cookies for people. While this might not seem like much to you, I have never made a cookie in my life. But what really inspired me most was, last night I gave a friend a picture in a frame. Something totally simple but something she absolutely loves. We were at a holiday party and she couldn’t stop talking about it. She came up to me multiple times to thank me and tell me how she absolutely loved her gift and how much it meant to her. Today, I learned that when she got home, she displayed the picture right away and continues to talk about it.

The picture cost me .29 to print out at Walgreens and the frame cost me $1.

One dollar and twenty-nine cents and she considers it the best gift I have ever given her. I know this comes off as a little self-aggrandizing rant about how old Chris did good, but really this is about forcing yourself to learn how to live differently. The importance we place upon “good” and “stable” jobs is an illusion. Sure, I like health insurance, pizza, and playing video games on huge televisions just as much as the next idiot guy, but it isn’t everything. It’s not even close to everything. What actually IS everything is your soul and how you use it. Billions of people pray to save their soul every single day, yet when left to their own devices they spend minutes, days, weeks and years of their lives worried about how they’re going to make money to buy things to impress other people. To impress mostly acquaintances and strangers.

And a vast majority of people reading this will say, hmm, click out of this and move on about their day not changing anything.

And most of you will not even question how you are using your soul.

And most of you will go about your lives and the course that was set for you. You will continue to maintain your career for someone you hate and continue to text people who are more enemies than friends and you will continue to do what you have to do in order to not feel alone.

And odds are, most of you will never change anything significant about your lives or take any real chances.

And that sucks.

Because it’s not about 50” televisions… and it’s NOT about $1.29 framed pictures.

But it IS about knowing why there is a difference.

And that is when you know you’re using your soul.